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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25022437">An old woman lives at the edge of the world</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spindizzy/pseuds/Spindizzy'>Spindizzy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Domestic Fluff, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:14:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,869</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25022437</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spindizzy/pseuds/Spindizzy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Peaceful stories about an old woman living at the edge of the world with her dog and other people's cats.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. An old woman lives at the edge of the world and watches the fireworks</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The idea for this project was that I wanted something cozy, something domestic and slightly speculative. What I ended up with was an old lady living on a tiny island in space, with occasional dragons and space fish because apparently I've read too much Tillie Walden in my time. Its primary home is <a href="https://anoldwomanlives.dreamwidth.org/">on Dreamwidth</a>, but I thought mirroring it here might be a good idea!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An old woman lives at the edge of the world. Her cottage is small and low-ceilinged, seeming to lean against the chimney as its only support as though the very wood holding it together is tired. The old woman herself is tired; she leans her elbows on the rail of her porch, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a mug of hot chocolate held loosely in her hands. It's more to keep her hands warm than anything else, but she wouldn't feel right watching the year change without a drink.</p><p>The air is clear and cold; the stars chase brilliant lines across the sky and disappear beneath her porch. Below her, she can see the tiny flashes of fireworks going up almost at staggered intervals as midnight celebrations cascade across the world. The sound doesn't travel, but she fancies she can smell the gunpowder on the air, taste it in the back of her mouth like her hot chocolate. The smoke lasts longer than the fireworks; it plumes far below her, and gradually straggles away.</p><p>The old woman waits until the last of it is gone and the cats slink out from under the porch as though to say that <em>nothing</em> about that little display could have bothered them, which is the sort of polite fiction that she and the cats permit each other. The dog wouldn't permit it, of course, but the dog has been sleeping by the fire since they realised that they weren't allowed any chocolate; dogs don't care about time, let alone the passing of it. </p><p>There's things the old woman could do, plans she could make, but it's a new year. There's world enough and time for this, for raising a mug in a toast, for gulping down lukewarm chocolate, for wrapping up warm and watching the first night of the year until it's time to sleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. An old woman lives at the edge of the world and lets sleeping dogs lie</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An old woman lives at the edge of the world. She stands in the doorway, listening to the rain drumming on her roof. The dragons and cats are still for once, a temporary truce to allow them to stay out of the rain. Cats and dragons are very close in that regard; proud, silly creatures who have enough sense to get out of the rain but not enough to stop them stepping through reality to find more of it. But today, no one steps, no one squabbles. There are half a dozen cats scattered across her porch (and the steps down from it, and the railing, and the dog) like the little furry trip hazards that they are.</p><p>There's a dragon the size of her palm lying precariously on top of the dog's head, right between the dog's floppy ears and down the dog's snout. The dog had eyed it as best they could at first, sneezed, and then apparently accepted their fate enough to just lie down for a nap. Ordinarily, she'd stage a rescue, or at least spread a blanket out by the fire to warm up and be a cat lure later, but it's still raining. She's lived here long enough to know that the only thing stopping the dog sprinting back out into the rain as soon as they dry off is the tiny creatures with claws sleeping against their fur. She's had enough of the wet dog smell for one day.</p><p>She doesn't allow herself to think about how peaceful it is; that's a guarantee of trouble. But it's nice to stand here with her hands in her pockets, letting the rain pour down and the stillness be undisturbed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. An old woman lives at the edge of the world and ignores the winds.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An old woman lives at the edge of the world. Today, she is tired. She wraps herself up in all of the blankets she owns and shuffles around her house, half asleep. The dog lies on one that's hanging too loosely, and is dragged across the room before either of them notice. Outside, a sharp wind bangs against the closed shutters and whistles down the chimney; inside, the old woman settles in a nest of cushions and blankets, books to one side of her and her teapot to the other. The old woman hasn't bothered opening the curtains, and if she looks at their bright colours through half-closed eyes, she can almost convince herself that she can't hear the gale moaning outside. The dog is too honest for such pretenses; they take a few turns around the room, sniffing at every window and keyhole as though to make sure the cold can't get in that way. Patrol complete, they come back to the old woman's nest and turns around a few times on the edge of the blankets, not sure where to sit. The old woman doesn't even look up from her book, just raises an arm to let them under the covers with her.</p><p>They doze off like that, warm and together, tucked into the blankets, and let the winds do as they will.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. An old woman lives at the edge of the world and greets the fish</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An old woman lives at the edge of the world. Today, she's not sure that a waterfall hasn't taken residence over her house; when she looks out of the windows she can see the rain <em>sheeting</em> down, shapes that might be fish flowing through the downpour. Koi, she thinks, although she's never gotten around to checking. The ones that come near her home tend to be about the size of the cats, or at least willing to take their chances. There are shallower pockets of space where she's seen smaller fish - goldfish usually, although sometimes they're like rock pools and starfish glitter in a more literal way that in other places - and there must logically be deeper pockets where larger creatures lurk. Here, she mostly gets these brightly coloured things, swimming past her in showers of red and white and gold, like stars come close enough to touch.</p><p>Carefully, she opens the kitchen window. When she reaches through it, the rain hits like a slap, but she's soaked to the elbows anyway so she might as well follow through. She turns her hand palm up, shows it to the fish.</p><p>"I'll tell you what I told all the other things that come through here: you're welcome to stay, and I'll gladly feed you, but if you damage my roof you're going to have to fix it. I don't care if you don't have hands."</p><p>Perhaps she's imagining it that the fish hesitate, that the circles they're swimming in start to match up more, as though they're consulting each other. She definitely isn't imagining that one of the fish, a pure gold monster about as long as her torso, swims over to run its entire body over her hand.</p><p>The old woman nods, accepting the matter as settled.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. An old woman lives at the edge of the world and waves at trains</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An old woman lives at the edge of the world and today she's awake early, kneeling in her garden to fill in holes. The dog lies behind her like someone who has no idea how those holes got there, and thus can't be expected to help, which doesn't fool anyone but maintains honour on all parts.</p><p>She hears the train before she sees it, a warning whistle that she doesn't always notice anymore. It's a bright light that grows closer and seems to rise and dip over hills she can't see, a bright silver trail before and after it. It resolves into an engine pulling a single carriage, one still dimly lit with the morning sun.</p><p>The train rattles alongside her house, rails appearing and disappearing beneath it as it passes. The dog has apparently forgotten they're not a puppy anymore and races it down the garden, barking cheerfully. The old woman remembers briefly that she isn't a puppy anymore either – and then she decided that she doesn't care and runs down the garden as well, cackling and whooping at the top of her lungs. She hops up onto the gate and waves her hat; the conductor shoves down a window and waves back, and the train hoots a hello. There mustn't be many passengers this early, or at least none that would notice the drop in propriety. She's known the conductor since they were a freckly child and she was a slightly younger old woman, so she can't say whether she can see the child-like glee on their face or if she's just pulling it from her own memories, but she hopes that the conductor can see her own laughter in return.</p><p>(The train is older than she is and will probably outlast her, the dog, and the grandchildren of the grandchildren of the cats that visit her. She tries not to hold that against it.)</p><p>She waves until the train is out of site, the dog balancing on two legs against the gate to bark and wag their tail as well. Then she slaps her hat back on her head and musses the dog's fur right between the ears. "Don't think that this means that you're not in trouble for digging up my garden," she says, but she was trying for stern and laughed instead, so the dog takes this as permission to go and roll in the freshly-dug dirt.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. An old woman lives at the edge of the world and is slightly trapped</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An old woman lives at the edge of the world, and today she's a little bit trapped. She'd only sat on the porch steps to put her shoes on, because there was weeding to be done! But then she'd made the mistake of <em>lingering</em>, because there was shade on the steps and the garden itself was trapped in the sort of heat that baked her sweat from her skin, and <em>then</em>. </p><p>The smallest dragons are flitting in and out of reality around her hanging baskets in bursts of spray, setting them swinging. She didn't know where they were going, but wherever it was had <em>rain</em>, and she wasn't going to move away from the tiny breezes and splashes of cool water before she had to. Two of the cats tried to climb up her skirt into her lap as she was sitting down, and because they were in the awkward teenage stage of cathood where they'd grown into their stubbornness but not their legs, detaching them was <em>quite</em> a process – one that ended with affronted dignity that had to be soothed with petting and scritches, despite the clear evidence that they had no dignity in the first place. And of course the dog had to check the water bowls that she'd put out for her visitors by sticking its face into every single one and snuffling, and as she was still sat down, obviously the dog had to report back to her. By putting its big furry head and dripping wet jaws <em>on her feet</em>!</p><p>There's only a little bit of shrieking and complaining. Only a little.</p><p>After that has all calmed down, the old woman leans against the wooden railing for her porch, still petting the cats. She's definitely going to put her shoes on once her feet have dried. She's going to refill the water bowls and check on the hanging baskets. She's going to weed the garden and stop the dog trying to help. She's going to... To...</p><p>The dog puts its head back on her feet, and the cats bump against her hands as her movements slow. The dragons are as quick as ever, scattering little rainbows above her, and the old woman is smiling when they lull her to sleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. An old woman lives at the edge of the world and gets in a stand-off</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An old woman lives at the edge of the world, and today, she's in a stand-off. One of the cats, a ginger tom with four teeth and ragged fur, got into a storage box earlier. She can't hear him purring over the sound of the rain, but the lid is ajar, and she can see him kneading her fleece blankets with his claws. He's probably going to drag the blanket away with him when he goes – or he's going to try, and gracefully ignore her scooting the weight of it along with a foot to make it easier. And that's fine! The cat is going to treat it like spoils of war, as though he took down an ostrich and brought it home, and that's fine too!</p><p><em>But</em> there are shoals of fish darting past the house today, and some of the other cats are looking like they might risk the rain if they could get their own spoils. If she doesn't set up some lures, she's going to have to deal with very damp cats trying to regain their dignity, and the house isn't big enough for them to <em>all</em> claim a surface and pretend that no one saw anything. <em>Especially</em> not if the dog decides that, despite all the evidence from the last hundred times it tried, this is a fun game.</p><p>"How about a deal?" the old woman says, hands on her hips. "You can stay in the box with <em>your</em> blanket, as long as you let me get the rest out. Deal?"</p><p>The cat yawns, showing off all four teeth.</p><p>"<em>And</em> I'll turn the box sideways for you so it's easier to steal things from later."<br/>
The cat blinks at her twice, as though to say he has no idea what she was talking about, then slowly rolls to one end of the box, claws still dug into the fleece below. Good enough!</p><p>... Well, not really, because he is still a very distinct weight on top of the pile of blankets she's trying to dig out of the box, but when she flops the other end of the fleece on top of him as she rummages, all she can feel is warmth and vibration of him purring against her forearm. Even when she has to scoop up the bundle of cat a little so that he doesn't drop when she pulls everything else out, he stays.</p><p>She throws lays the blankets and cushions out in front of the fire to heat up, creating warm patches that might entice some cats indoors. She sits down by the box, and listens to the rain and rising purrs.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. An old woman lives at the edge of the  world and can't seem to settle</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An old woman lives at the edge of the world, and today she can't seem to settle. It feels like there's a storm in the air, a pressure that she can't escape no matter how she cracks her jaws or pops her ears. It lingers all through the morning as she works on her garden. She covers and ties down anything that might be damaged if the storm appears, harvests anything that's ready. The dog stays close to her heels, circling apologetically whenever it nearly trips her. It doesn't whine, it doesn't sound distressed – it just wants to stay close, and she can't blame it.</p>
<p>She didn't see anything moving around when she opened her front door that morning, but by the time she tidies up her tools and starts moving her basket indoors, there are cats slinking onto the porch and tiny dragons skittering up and down the window shutters. There's a glitter of stardust on the ground, like something has already taken cover under her porch. The old woman thinks that she can perhaps see fish ducking around her porch struts, as though even they want to take shelter from the storm.</p>
<p>The restlessness doesn't go away. She tries to sit down and pick up a book, or her knitting, or anything at all, and within minutes she's on her feet again. She stokes the fire until it's warm and bright, and turns on every light in the room. She drags a large, heavy wooden box to the front door so that she can wedge it open. She stands on the porch for a few minutes, staring outside as she drums her fingers against her leg. Food, she thinks. Something warm and nourishing, something that she can keep warm as long as she needs. And tea – she has a cupboard full of teas, with varying delicacies of flavour, but today calls for a proper builder's tea, something hot and strong.</p>
<p>The old woman takes a deep breath, trying to taste for rain on the air, and then she goes back inside to start chopping the vegetables for a stew. She'll invite people round, and let the animals stay as long as they like. She's not sure if the storm's coming or not, but they can wait it out together.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. An old woman lives at the edge of the world and dances</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An old woman lives at the edge of the world, and today she's dancing. It's a dance powered by glee and spite, one that spins down the path to her garden gate and back up to her porch. She whoops and laughs as fireworks go off in the distance. Her coat flaps around her like wings. The dog dodges her wide-flung arms as it barks and jumps around her.</p><p>They made it through the year. Some years deserve to be seen out in peace, with quiet and gentleness, with kindness for the time that passed. Some years – the year just gone – need to be <em>driven</em> out. With noise, with defiance, with hope shouted aloud and held up high. The old woman is only one person, the dog is only one dog, but they do what they can to chase the old year away, affirming all over again <em>we lived, we lived, we lived</em>.</p>
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